Jack's Zerg have a consistent trait, every zerg combat unit has a sort of top carapace. The more melee the combat unit is, the bigger the carapace. Notice the Ultralisks head is covered with a huge carapace, the baneling's head only has a small one, the roach has a large top carapace going down its entire body, kinda emphasizing that this is to protect it against air attacks, since it cannot attack air. It gives you the feeling that nature has kept this top carapace trait because it works and has continued to weave it into every zerg unit.

And that's exactly in opposition to Blizzard's aim. Their intention is to make unit types visually distinctive from one another, even if from the same race. Hence, the features being highlighted in a concept art ought to be those that are unique to that unit.

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Originally Posted by Wankey

His art is also a lot more symmetrical, and since nature loves symmetry, it fits the overall natural zerg look. The bulbous sac of the baneling is centered in Jack's art, not randomly off to the side. Notice the roach is really a copy of itself down the center line.

As opposed to Blizzard's concept art? If you haven't noticed, it's pretty much symmetrical down its center line as well.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Wankey

I think as a texture artist, going by Jack's art would be so much easier since he has gone to the trouble of detailing the various parts of the unit. (Notice how the baneling has changed from that simple concept art to a grotesque unique with bulging sacs of goo)

I disagree there. Due to the way he's colored the art, along with the somewhat lack of clean lines in some parts of the artwork, it makes things a lot more ambiguous than having solid colors and clean lines. Shading and the like would be based more on in-game lighting.

And to add to Nicol's comments, the amount of detail in a concept art is highly dependent on its purposes. Simplified designs and colors with exaggerated features would be useful for smaller models with low poly counts as minute details can neither be seen nor recreated faithfully. Large amounts of detail are only useful if they can be used. Hence, they are more useful in stuff like movies where these tiny details can be picked up and actually matter.

I've been following Mr Jack's work for some time. According to his journal, he actually has some of his work recognized by Blizzard and in their art section. I'm going to try to see if he wants to do some exclusive work for SCL. Since he has the freedom to visit so many Blizzard events, perhaps we can exchange him a free ticket for some special artwork.

"As a kid it was traumatic. It was one thing for your teacher to tell you that life was harsh for settlers headed West in the decades after the Louisiana Purchase. It was a lot more chilling to watch as your three children, "Boobs, Fart, and Winky" drowned in the Colorado river shortly before your wife died of diarrhea."
- Gamespy talking about the original Oregon Trail

To be honest... I think a lot of the Protoss units look really really weird. In SC1, none of the protoss units looked like "a face stuck to a dragoon". Most of the Protoss units felt like they were bred for one purpose (dragoon is a cannon with 4 legs, reaver is a crazy factory on wheels)

Now we get the Stalker, whilst the idea is good looks like a very odd looking unit. The Immortal looks even weirder, why does have such a high stature when you can remove the torso and pair the gun together and use the legs are a platform.